Thursday, 7 July 2016

ENglish - VinglisH!

Dear Students,

English Section in the exam is a section where some students score very well but others even fail to clear cut-off. Learning Grammar is really essential to score good marks. But, what happens is that students from various boards where lesser attention is paid on English language fail to apply grammar during the examination even if they know the rules.

So, conclusion is that practicing in some interesting way so that the things remain intact in your mind is important. Keeping this in mind, we have launched this series of "ENglish - VinglisH". We have done enough for some common mistakes which we do while speaking, writing and communicating in English. Now we will discuss about the use of some basic words in English.

This is the seventh post of ENglish - VinglisH. Hope you people like it.

So, lets start now!!

1. Amount/number

These two work in the same way as “less” and “fewer”, referring respectively to commodities and individual items.

The rules:

1) “Amount” refers to a commodity, which can’t be counted (for instance water).

2) “Number” refers to individual things that can be counted (for example birds).

How not to do it:

1) A greater amount of people are eating more healthily

How to do it properly:

1) A greater number of people are eating more healthily

2) The rain dumped a larger amount of water on the country than is average for the month

2. To/two/too

It’s time to revisit another common grammar mistake that we also covered in our homophones post, as no article on grammar gripes would be complete without it. It’s easy to see why people get this one wrong, but there’s no reason why you should.

The rules:

1) “To” is used in the infinitive form of a verb – “to talk”.

2) “To” is also used to mean “towards”.

3) “Too” means “also” or “as well”.

4) “Two” refers to the number 2.

How not to do it:

1) I’m to hot

2) It’s time two go

3) I’m going too town

4) He bought to cakes

How to do it properly:

1) I’m too hot

2) It’s time to go

3) I’m going to town

4) He bought two cakes

3. Then/than

Confusion between “then” and “than” probably arises because the two look and sound similar.

The rules:

1) “Than” is used in comparisons.

2) “Then” is used to indicate something following something else in time, as in step-by-step instructions, or planning a schedule (“we’ll go there then there”).